In Search of Gus

Chapter 1

Budaghers Corner lies halfway between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, a southwestern terrain with mysteries of its own but the one that held us captive for many weeks took us down a path we never expected.

The sound of Don's voice carried all of the emotions he was struggling to manage after a weekend of searching for Gus.  Hundreds of miles separated our homes and I longed to help in some way . . . and then an idea came to mind.

I dialed the dowser’s number.

“My brother lost his dog,” I said as my voice cracked and I struggled to hold back the tears. “He lives in Santa Fe.”

A raspy cough came through the phone. “Is it a small dog?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Is the dog white?”

How can she know this?  I wondered.  

A wave of possibilities swirled around us containing a scenario that held Gus safe and back home. The dowser was a lifeline to this outcome—it felt like help was arriving in ways we might not understand.

“I’m really sick,” the dowser said. “I may have pneumonia so let me get some sleep and I’ll call you back in a couple hours and then we can talk more about your brother’s dog.”

“Thank you,” was all I could say and then the dam broke open and the tears came. 

Ginny was quiet.  And then her voice changed—it softened and became gentler. “I have found many pets before,” she said. “And missing persons. I work with the police. Do you remember Chandra Levy? I gave the police the location where they would find her in Rock Creek Park. And they did.”

I exhaled a long breath and felt a shift in possibilities. 

___________

In her book Extraordinary Knowing, Elizabeth Mayer describes her remarkable introduction to dowsing.  After her daughter’s antique harp was stolen and Elizabeth had worked with the police for months to exhaust all leads, a friend suggested she contact a dowser. What’s that she asked?

A dowser is a person who can find things. Some are able to find lost items or treasures, others find natural resources like water and precious metals, and some can find lost people and pets. They are able to tap into information that exists beyond our five senses—some describe it as connecting with a universal consciousness or energetic library of all that is known.

As a psychiatrist, Elizabeth felt skeptical about dowsing but decided to give it a try and explore the possibilities… feeling she had nothing to lose. She contacted the head of the American Society of Dowsers, a gentleman in Arkansas who asked her to send him a map of Oakland where the harp had been stolen. After he received the map and conducted a search to locate the harp, he called her with a street address. Still having doubts and feeling unsure about what to do, Elizabeth decided to post flyers around the location he had provided with a picture of the harp and a reward. A few days later, she received a call.

A neighbor had seen her daughter’s harp at the address provided by the dowser.

As Elizabeth pulled into her driveway, with the antique harp sitting in the back of her car, one thought crossed her mind… this changes everything.